At the same time, you have a good point, these decisions are difficult and need to be very carefully weighted. Debian and RedHat are the two distributions that everybody else always ends up following so a major departure from established policy there has potentially huge impact downstream.
How is that different from the "if you want to run linux don't buy a winmodem" that we said convincingly twenty years ago ? Would you have approved that linux 2.0 added binary blobs to the kernel in order to correctly work with the hardware that you had invested in (some random winmodem) ?
But they don't have to choose Debian.
If Debian had maintained a strict "Free" stance, people could still use their troublesome hardware out-of-the-box simply by picking another distro that did include non-Free firmware in the installer. There are plenty of them. Like, 99% of all other distros.
Not all distros have to be everything to everyone. It's OK to have a niche.
When thought with a clear and unbiased mind, Debian did the absolute best they can do.
Add firmware, be open about it, install only when necessary, allow people to opt out when they know what they are doing.
This isn’t Debian’s niche though. Like many distros, Debian came with the free repos configured by default, but its had non-free packages available forever and they already had a non-free installation iso hidden away. The line had been crossed forever ago. Now it’s just a friendlier experience.
This is a good thing.
Point 1 of the Social Contract[0] is literally "Debian will remain 100% Free"
Please explain how championing Software Freedom would not be Debian's niche.
Because you wouldn't be pushing those users to an alternative linux distro, you'd be pushing them to Apple and Windows and that's far more damaging to FOSS than to include some firmware blobs. The issue was debated at considerable length, I've followed the debate (because I use Debian and Debian derived distros on all of my machines, including laptops, servers and desktops) and I'm happy to see this outcome because it shows a certain level of maturity. The world isn't easily defined in terms of black and white. Debian is doing a great job and this minor concession is only going to strengthen its position as the FOSS distro of choice because more people will end up being able to use it successfully.
Note that far more people care about whether or not a distro works on their machine than whatever narrow reading of 'The Word' causes it to malfunction. Builders are few, consumers are many and I'd much rather see Debian succeed in the long term than die on the hill of FOSS purism.
The Linux-libre people even removed the warning that the CPU is vulnerable to spectre/meltdown if you don't update the microcode. But ... your CPU already comes with that microcode out of the factory, just a different version of it. How is running an older known to be buggy microcode better?
As far as I know, Debian does not distribute proprietary EEPROM firmware updates at all, as these are generally not required to use the hardware (and, depending on the device and update in question, may or may not be recommended for most users).
In other words, the difference is practical, not ideological.
My point was that the entire position just doesn't make any sense: either you reject all non-free software no matter how it's loaded (which means there are very few computers you can actually use), or you just use your hardware with "non-free firmware" that would be baked in anyway and stop worrying about the entire thing.
If you want the maintain the status quo you support the hardware that has the most users, if you want to change it you also support the hardware you want them to use.
The relevant documentation is here: https://wiki.debian.org/PortsDocs/New
Also, the rules for becoming an official port is here: https://ftp-master.debian.org/archive-criteria.html
When RISC-V satisfies the relevant criteria, they can become official.
Also, maintaining a port is tremendous amount of work. Debian users only see the tip of the iceberg. There's so much beneath that.
Is RISC-V the be-all, end-all? No, but it could help them get a lot closer than they're likely to get with any of the proprietary ISAs.
This is just like Debian generally does not write new useful software to put into Debian, and instead depend on outside, “upstream” authors to write software. Some other organizations, like FSF and its GNU project, will have advocacy roles, and do have the incentives to write new software and to help porting to new architectures. It is there that the motivations for this work must be found. Of course, individual people can be involved in more than one organization, and many Debian people happen to be enthusiastic advocates, and will in fact often do this work. But the reason for them doing this work is not, mostly, rooted in them being a part of Debian.
Therefore, and this is my point, if you want this work to be done, you can’t exhort Debian to do it. It will not work. Ask instead why someone else, whom you think should be motivated to do the work, does not do it.
Yes, but my point is, they weren’t doing that work just because they were Debian contributors; they had their own additional reason for doing it. They were not assigned the work by Debian central command. Therefore, asking Debian why Debian does not do some work or other is usually the wrong way to get something done.
That said, the community of contributors are what makes up the Debian project, so in a sense it is Debian deciding to do things when Debian does things :)
If they conflict with RISC-V's own space, the chip can't use RISC-V trademarks.
And, of course, the RISC-V Consortium will never adopt proprietary extensions, as that goes against its core values.
Everything else matters as much as FSF point of view on something being free or not.
So that we do not have to rely on anybody's goodwill.
Just like many open core products that really need the full deal for being usable in a proper way.
Expecting otherwise is whishful thinking, or academia/maker community focus.
The plan is to have it ready for Debian 13: https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2023/06/msg00...
Including but making it optional was an excellent decision. Those who need will get what they want, those who don't will have the same result as with Bullseye.
On the other hand, firmware is a convoluted issue. It was always present, but became increasingly visible over the years. While I'm a strong Free Software supporter, firmware is one of the hardest parts to convert, because of the IP it entails and trade secrets it embodies.